2022’s Legends & Lattes made waves by acting as a wormhole for many readers into the wide world of cozy, low-stakes fantasy. In our review, we praised the book, adoring its mellow narrative and simple, heartfelt messages. This year, author Travis Baldree followed his landmark hit with Bookshops & Bonedust, a prequel story emblematic of Baldree’s improvement as a storyteller.
Bookshops & Bonedust follows Viv, the orc coffee shop owner and ex-barbarian of Legends & Lattes fame. In this prequel, we meet Viv when she’s a wide-eyed mercenary, running with a company called Rackam’s Ravens. Viv’s eagerness to prove herself turns painful when an enemy spears her leg and renders her useless. Rackam drops her in the seaside town of Murk to recover, promising he’ll return to fetch her once the Ravens track down and incapacitate the necromancer Varine. Viv explores Murk as her leg recovers, unearthing hidden gems, making new friends, and discovering threatening secrets.
I first want to commend Travis Baldree for this exquisite follow-up. Bookshops & Bonedust inched its way to the “top” of my TBR box (it’s actually the far left), and I felt…trepidation. Legends & Lattes was a charming and delightful book, but its prose was somewhat mechanical. I don’t blame Baldree for this, knowing the book was written for National Novel Writing Month and that it was his first published work. I also remember Legends & Lattes being so low stakes I struggled to remember much of it, instead allowing the story to drift out of my brain like the cartoon scent of a windowsill pie.
Bookshops & Bonedust quelled all of these worries with plenty of panache. Baldree’s writing has drastically improved from good in Legends & Lattes to great in Bookshops & Bonedust. There are still some hiccups, some weirdly repeated words, and awkward turns of phrase. Despite this, I found the book breezy and readable, with a few gems of glowing prose in some segments.
Baldree also gives himself some wiggle room to up the stakes. In the first book, the worst threat to Viv’s well-being was losing her shop. In Bookshops & Bonedust, there’s a distinct (if distant) villain who poses an actual threat to Viv and her comrades. This is by no means the focus of the novel, but it serves a crucial purpose. With the looming threat of the villain on the page, Bookshops & Bonedust has a brisk pace that its predecessor couldn’t achieve. Here for the coziness? Not to worry; Baldree offers it in droves, centering Viv’s exploits on a ramshackle seaside bookshop in need of an upgrade.
I also found Baldree’s character work significantly improved here. Viv develops sweet and unique relationships with the denizens of Murk, including Maylee, a dwarf who laid down her mace and opened a bakery. Then there’s Fern, the foul-mouthed rattkin owner of the bookshop, and Gallina, a feisty gnome who wants Viv to put in a good word with Rackam when he returns.
Viv also gets an upgrade in this novel, with an actual internal conflict to grapple with. She grows attached to her friends in Murk while her impending return to the mercenary life lurks in the back of her mind. She struggles to reconcile her eventual departure with the feelings of those she will leave behind. It’s a touching message that feels unique to Viv and endlessly relatable at once.
Despite my early misgivings (for which I have only myself to blame), Bookshops & Bonedust was a fitting end to a great year of reading for me. It was my final book of 2023, and it felt in many ways like a love letter to readers.
Review: Bookshops & Bonedust—8.5/10
-Cole
